MOVIE REVIEW: Final Phillip Seymour Hoffman film is a tale of intrigue

Friday

Jul 25, 2014 at 7:15 AMAug 5, 2014 at 10:05 AM

“A Most Wanted Man” is not his best film, but his last starring role succeeds in reminding how much his untimely death has robbed us of his immense gifts.

By Al AlexanderFor The Patriot Ledger

Making a memorable exit is essential for every great actor, and Philip Seymour Hoffman impressively fulfills that criterion with the twisty-turny spy thriller, “A Most Wanted Man.” It’s not his best film (That will forever be “Capote.”), but his final starring role succeeds in reminding how much his untimely death has robbed us of his immense gifts. Often called a man of excess, in both his size and appetites, Hoffman proves ideal in filling the roomy britches of Gunter Bachmann, a German spook heading up a black-ops team charged with ferreting out and identifying suspected terrorists in Hamburg.

Like Hoffman, Bachmann doesn’t always play by the rules. And if he breaks a few hearts and laws, so be it. Just as long as he quenches his thirsts. And for Bachmann that means using any means necessary to prevent radical Islamists from pulling off another 9-11, an attack engineered by Mohamed Atta from his Hamburg apartment. The movie, adapted from John le Carre’s 2008 novel by Andrew Bovell (the equally complex “Lantana”), finds Buchmann on the hunt for a man he and his superiors believe might be the next Atta, a young, scruffy Chechen refugee (Grigoriy Dobrygin) who is the lone heir to a 10 million euro fortune left behind by his estranged father, a Russian military bigwig. Buchmann and his crew, which also includes the lovely and leggy, Irna (“Barbara’s” Nina Hoss), and the handsome and stoic, Maximilian (a wasted Daniel Bruhl), believe the Chechen wants to funnel the inheritance into various terrorists groups. But others, including the guy’s naive do-gooder lawyer, Annabel Richter (Rachel McAdams), believe Dobrygin’s Issa Karpov is sincere in both his quest to seek asylum from his Russian oppressors and his desire to donate his inheritance to various charities.

The executor of that cash is Thomas Brue, a preening, greedy banker (Willem Dafoe at his slimiest) who is about to become the central pawn in an elaborate ruse to reveal Karpov’s true intentions and, even better, flush out the chief financial officer for Hamburg’s islamic terrorist cells. But standing in Buchmann’s way are a gaggle of overeager bosses and a bossy CIA operative (a sassy Robin Wright) who could easily ruin his plan.

What ensues is slow but thrilling, as director Anton Corbijn (“Control,” “The American”) skillfully lures you deeper and deeper into the intrigue. The German accents, particularly by the American actors, are a wee bit off, but the performances are strong enough to look past it and lose yourself in the bleak moodiness Corbijn establishes. His characters, except for McAdams’ Annabel, are all people living on the edge of morality. There are no actual “good guys,” just varying degrees of depravity in a lawless game of cat and mouse played out under the pretense of working for the common good, whether you’re Christian or Islamic. Who do we root for and why? Those are questions the film forces you to ask. And the answers change as often as the tension builds. It takes patience, though, especially if you’re used to the nonstop action in most Hollywood spy thrillers. The reward comes via a riveting climax offering a series of clever twists you don’t see coming.

It’s a fun ride that also offers moments of profundity concerning the less than heroic way we fight the war on terror. But the main reason to see “A Most Wanted Man” is Hoffman. Maybe it’s because he’s gone now, but there’s something special about this performance that makes you take notice and savor how fine an actor he was. It’s also fitting that his character, like Hoffman, is a man always trying to outrun his demons. A race they both eventually lose, making an already somber movie even sadder.